Every Reason
by Meredith Bronwen Mallory
Summary: After spending so long with his life defined by the war, BJ needs a new reason to go on.


AUTHOR'S NOTES: First off, this fic was written as a birthday present for Leigh (Epigone), who was born on March 3rd. Lovely, lovely lady that she is. ^_^

Second-- as always, I can't thank you enough for taking the time to read my work. I hope it's worth it, and I hope that (if you're so inclined) you'll let me know what you think! This is fairly short, for me; something of a scene/snippet like "In All The Empty Places". ^_^

-Meredith

DATE STARTED: March 1st, 2004

DATE FINISHED: March 2nd, 2004

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Every Reason 1/1

by Meredith Bronwen Mallory

mallorys-girl@cinci.rr.com

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In the early morning, in that gray, desperate space between midnight and revelry at dawn, BJ waits. He lies quietly, _in wait_, which implies a certain amount of secrecy. Hushed voices, hands brushing, reaching for the same glass of gin. The sheets are coarse underneath him, his dog tags biting into his skin from laying at an odd angle, but he is strangely distanced from these things. Anticipation swells beside guilt in his heart, and there is love there too, so how can he have room for all of these things? He's scrunched up against one side of the cot, back turned-- he wants to leave room for Hawkeye.

Outside, Korea lies in wait also, like a predator with sleepy nocturnal eyes. It's patience is the patience of the earth, the patience of something that knows its prey will come in time. Spring is creeping through the roots and leaves, and the mines shiver with the change in temperature, and explode. Way off, in the distance, like the sound of someone clapping in the dark. 

He doesn't want to be awake right now, waiting for sounds that never come, and ones that do, shaking your bones in their moorings. But also, he must be awake, just like he must breathe, and kiss his wife's picture every evening, even if he is no longer sure exactly why he does these things. Pretty soon, he tells himself, he just needs to wait a little longer, because it's always good to put some space in after Charles leaves for the early morning shift. Space, blankness, separation on a page, in the world,

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(god, peg, I'm still sorry)

a rest-- like in musical notation -- followed by the next measure. 

He'll hear the faint, warning creak of Hawkeye's cot, and then, there will be hands on him. Hands on BJ, thin-fingered and gracelessly elegant but still belonging to a man. Hawkeye's hands. He'll roll over and lift the spartan cover, while Hawkeye grins like a school boy found out after curfew. 

"Any pity for a poor homeless waif?" a sparkle in the blue, Maine-coastline eyes. He can say that because they're all homeless, half-ghosts here-- Hawkeye can joke about almost anything. It's the things he can't mock that you ought to be afraid of. 

"I know you," BJ will say. "You'll take me for all I own and more." That's the God's honest truth, assuming there's a God, and if you're being honest-- and no one around here is, so never mind. BJ will open his arms, all the same, or else allow himself to be taken into Hawkeye's equally strong ones. It's disconcerting sometimes, this strength to answer strength. 

"On my honor as an officer in the US army," Hawkeye deadpans. So good at that, straight-faced hysteria, and even though BJ can usually beat Hawkeye at poker, neither of them is going to come out on top with this one. 

BJ waits. After the hands, of course, there will come kisses, the two of them pressed together like children playing hide and seek.

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(we'll never get caught, never get caught)

Hawkeye always tastes like gin, and copper, and a sailor that's been out to sea far too long. They both smell like blood. In the waiting, in these moments before, BJ finds it disturbing that he can press his lips to Hawkeye's neck, and not mind the smell. Maybe he even relishes it, a little, because it is part of Hawkeye and part of himself. They are bound together, brothers and so much more in

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(someone else's, children's--!)

blood. And like the lithe grace in Hawkeye's hands, it is something all too terribly constant. Those hands are beautiful, and maddening, and wield the scalpel with a sort of hushed and gentle reverence. An artist's love for his work, no matter how painful, how hungry the muse. It's hard to imagine Hawkeye not holding a surgical instrument-- even when those hands are tracing the small knobs on BJ's spine. That's alright, though; if it's Hawkeye, being cut open is not something BJ could bring himself to mind. Perhaps that's the thought that should worry him the most, while he's waiting. Except...

Except Hawkeye will never come

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(accept Hawkeye will never come)

because it's been twenty six years come this July, twenty six years and 5,425 miles and a whole lot more than that. The cot is a bed and the sheets are fine and the war is over.

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(is it? is it?)

BJ is in his home in Mill Valley, has been the whole time. It's our memories that betray us, gaining strength as our bodies weaken and grow old. There will be no morning revelry of Klinger's baleful trumpet, or even of Erin's sleepy footsteps and hurried clash of cutlery, determined to make it in time to class. 

BJ is fifty years old. He works at the university hospital and gets mail from the veteran's association, meets with his daughter once a week for dinner. He's a member of the senior staff with published papers and an ex-wife he's actually still on speaking terms with. Every evening, he goes for a jog and watches the sun set over a landscape he used to long for. He always has a martini right before he lays down, though whether it is to drive away the dreams or bring them, he doesn't know. In the bottom drawer of his nightstand, in a little brown box, pressed between the pages of a letter, there is a picture he looks at when the night gets too dark, or the interns too fresh-faced, or when the television starts warbling out the word 'war'. 

The picture is of two young doctors, wearing the title of soldier like a little boy wears his brother's hand-me-downs; awkward, and with resentment. They smile in monochrome, arms slung around each other a little too low for comrades. BJ does not remember being happy in Korea, but he knows that this was as close as it came. In the photo, Hawkeye's head is tipped towards BJ, mouth in a grin despite being captured in mid-sentence. What no one else knows, what no one will ever know, is the heat of that North Asian sun and the feel of Hawkeye's fingers and the little puffs of breath on BJ's neck as his best friend whispered, "I love you, you know that?"

Maybe that's why, in this picture, BJ looks so surprised.

The letter itself is from Daniel Pierce-- it says that BJ might want to have this, this picture, and will he please come up to Maine for wake?

_(Gin-tinted breath against a sweaty neck-- scrubs against scrubs. _

"I love you, you know that?"

And he hadn't.)

Hawkeye is dead-- has been for over two decades. 

_(You only understand these things, of course, when it's too late.)_

And that is every reason to get out of bed. 

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Feed the muse at mallorys-girl@cinci.rr.com . Don't worry-- I promise she's got all her shots and what not. ^_~


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